


Mistakes

by ReallyMissCoffee



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: #HannibalHoliday, Angst, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 08:32:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13142904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReallyMissCoffee/pseuds/ReallyMissCoffee
Summary: “Why did you leave him?” Will asks. “What did he do?”“Mr. Dimmond?” Hannibal’s eyebrows lift and his expression is almost pleasant. “Nothing.”





	Mistakes

**Author's Note:**

> My part of the #HannibalHoliday exchange. This gift is for the awesome [Warriorof42](http://warriorof42.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, who wanted angst and Dimmond! I hope you like it!

Will had known the risks. Opening his mind to Hannibal again, guarded as he’d intended to be, is as reckless a choice as he’s ever made.

He’d deluded himself, believing that this time it would be different, that he would be the one in control. He even manages it that first time. He holds the parts of himself back that Hannibal clearly wants in order to ask about ‘The Tooth Fairy’. He’s entirely professional about the whole thing, and while Hannibal doesn’t look frustrated (fuck, does he ever?) Will likes to think he can see the lines etched deeply into Hannibal’s expression like old scars.

Hannibal speaks to him like nothing has changed, like Will hasn’t struggled for years to find and maintain normalcy. Like they’re not speaking to each other with Hannibal behind bars. He talks like it’s them facing one another in Hannibal’s office, the flute of a wine glass between Hannibal’s fingers as they speak about darkness and even darker urges as they once had.

Will leaves, and it isn’t until he returns, alone, to his rented room that evening that he realizes how much Hannibal’s barbs have once again slid under his skin. Will can feel them cutting in like thorns, piercing through the layers he’s erected around himself in the last few years. He’s been stable. He’s been fine. He’s _built_ something, and so Will calls Molly in a fit of desperation. Yet even as they speak, even as her voice calms him back down, there’s something in the back of Will’s mind that he can’t quite tame. It’s like eyes glinting in the dark. Something dark he’s shoved down that now rears its head once again.

He tells himself firmly that his time with Hannibal is limited. That once he has what he needs, that will be it. Hannibal Lecter can rot and Will wants nothing more to do with him.

~*~ 

He holds himself at a distance when he next speaks with Hannibal. There’s no visible sign of irritation, and something about Hannibal’s calm stoicism rubs Will the wrong way. Maybe he’s a little quick to press, a little less contained than he once was, but Hannibal is still in control. He speaks to Will like this is simply expected, like he knows Will could never _truly_ step away from him.

The more they discuss the case - the more clues Will gets, the deeper the investigation takes him - Will begins to realize that Hannibal might be right.

~*~ 

He starts to think. Molly would tell him it’s a dangerous pastime, but as Will pours over case files and his mind creeps through dark corridors of memory and delight, it’s impossible for Will to ignore the flickers of recollection he’d rather leave to the wolves. 

He remembers everything Hannibal has done to him. Years of struggling to work through his anger at Hannibal Lecter all come crashing down, but when the walls crumble, Will isn’t left facing pure, unadulterated rage. Instead there’s a quiet confusion in his mind, something small and tentative, and he doesn’t like it. Rage he can handle. Hurt and confusion are much more complicated. Hurt requires expectation as much as abandonment does, and Will is left discomfited by everything.

He’d expected crushing rage if ever he opened this particular Pandora’s Box, but while he’s angry, it’s tame, almost confused. He sits in his room, glossy photos strewn about on the bed, an old clock ticking oddly on the wall, and Will just feels alone. There’s something growing in his chest, something that feels old and worn and abused. He can almost catch glimpses of fangs in his peripheral vision, and there’s darkness scratching at the doors to his mind, as if asking to be let in. He closes his eyes, breathes deeply, and thinks of the people he’s trying to save. 

~*~ 

It’s during a lull in their conversation over five visits later that a thought occurs to Will. They’ve been speaking about _why_ the killer keeps leaving shattered mirrors over the eyes, and Hannibal has been as vague as ever, but this time, Will believes he’s beginning to get more of a picture. He understands, and after Hannibal’s voice trails off, Will is left thoughtful. Hannibal had mentioned the word ‘tableaus’ in their discussion, and the word lingers in the back of Will’s mind, percolating into something more. 

He’s been _very_ careful up until now to keep things professional, and Hannibal – naturally – has done everything in his power to make that impossible. From calling him, “Dear Will,” to asking about Will’s borrowed family, to merely sitting at his desk by times with his hands folded comfortably and urging Will to pull up a chair.

It’s like this that they’re seated: Hannibal behind his desk, hands folded over the top, and Will leaning back in a slightly-uncomfortable plastic chair. As Will looks across at Hannibal, at his shorter-cropped hair, the unflattering cut of the uniform, the word ‘tableaus’ finally flickers something to life in the back of Will’s mind.

“You were careful not to leave many in Florence,” Will says, and even as he speaks, he fears his mouth has a mind of its own.

Hannibal doesn’t look surprised, but he _does_ glance up at Will, as if thoughtful. Will gets the distinct impression of an internal Cheshire grin, and he almost wants to kick himself for talking. But Hannibal, as always, doesn’t seem to notice. “Yes. I was. Had I left bodies strewn about in tableaus as before, it would have brought the FBI down upon me.”

It makes sense, but Will still frowns. “You wanted them to find you.”

“No. I wanted _you_ to find me.”

“You didn’t make it easy.”

“It wasn’t intended to be easy.” Hannibal cants his head, almost coquettish, and delights at the way Will shifts in his seat. “Yet still you knew where to look for me.”

“Drawn there, yes.” Will nods, and while he wants to look away, he doesn’t. “I wasn’t certain. Not at first. Then the tableau…”

Will trails off, because suddenly something seems wrong. He thinks back, closes his eyes, and just for a moment he puts himself in Hannibal’s position. Will’s been over the crime scene photos before. The inspector, the heart in the chapel, the professor, Dr. Fell, Mason Verger and his men, all the bodies left behind Hannibal. With the exception of those arguably killed for him, each one had served a purpose. Moving up in the ranks, assuming an identity, protecting himself…

The one that doesn’t fit the pattern is the heart in the chapel. And, knowing that Hannibal had shied _away_ from tableaus…

“Why did you leave him?” Will asks. “What did he do?”

“Mr. Dimmond?” Hannibal’s eyebrows lift and his expression is almost pleasant. “Nothing.”

“Nothing.”

“He inferred he knew I was not who I said I was. He didn’t care.”

Will’s frown deepens. “So you killed him.”

“Yes.”

“You were careful not to create anything else when you were there,” Will presses. “Why him?”

“Are you asking in an official capacity, or is this personal, Will?”

“Answer the question.”

Hannibal’s smile is all in his eyes. “No. I don’t believe I will. You’ll have to ascertain that for yourself.”

“You want me to piece together the motives of a madman,” Will scoffs, but even as he says the words, they ring hollow. Hannibal doesn’t look bothered; they both know Hannibal isn’t mad. “Is that about right?”

“If you like.”

~*~

 _If you like_. Three words that shouldn’t spark any type of heat in Will’s mind, and yet they rip across him like fire.

He’d left not long after that, frustrated, with Hannibal politely bidding him goodbye. Will wants to say he’d let the whole damn topic go, but as he sits on his bed in the middle of the night, skin damp with sweat and his hair plastered across his forehead from the nightmare that had jerked him awake, he knows he hadn’t. His mind burns with discomfort, as if recoiling from his nightmares, and as he sits there in the silence interspersed only with his own ragged breathing, he reaches for his phone.

The light from the screen casts an eerie glow across Will’s face as he thinks back. Dimmond… Dimmond. Will steps back into his mind, gently filing back through his thoughts as Hannibal had once instructed him on how to do. He can’t do it with the same accuracy but he doesn’t have to. The first name is on the tip of his tongue, and when Will finally gets it, he wastes no time in typing it into his Internet browser’s search bar.

 _Anthony Dimmond_.

Will sees the word ‘poetry’. He sees the curl of dark hair, the handsome features, the winning smile, and Will promptly drops his phone.

In that split second, he understands. His pulse picks up speed and as he lets his head fall back against the headboard behind him and the photograph from the back of Dimmond’s book settles behind his mind’s eye, Will lifts his hands and sets them over his eyes.

He doesn’t call Molly.

~*~

Will pulls Alana aside the next day. Her lips are thin when she hears his request, and she’s clearly not in favor of it, but as Will avoids her eyes and the frown mars his lips, he shakes his head.

“I don’t want this on record,” he says, but it’s more a plea.

In the end, perhaps owing to the fact that they had once been better friends, Alana agrees, though only promises not to record the audio feed between them.

“I’ll be listening,” she warns, and Will nods.

~*~

“He looked like me,” Will says as he sits down in the chair already set up for him outside of Hannibal’s cell.

Hannibal doesn’t look up at first, his attention bent over his work. His fingers are quick as he draws lines across a sprawling piece of paper on his desk. Will can just make out cobbled streets and lamps before he allows his attention to drift. He knows Hannibal is listening, and a part of him expects Hannibal to deny everything.

So when Hannibal finally looks up at him with an unreadable expression and then says, “yes, he did,” Will doesn’t know what to say.

There are endless questions in his mind. He remembers the ache of it. He remembers how gutted he’d felt all over again upon finding ‘Hannibal’s Broken Heart’ left behind, but he’d never so much as thought to look into what the victim had once looked like. Now that he knows, now that he’s aware of _what_ Hannibal had truly killed, it makes the sting of it so much sharper. He still doesn’t know why, though. He doesn’t know if Hannibal had been killing _him_ , or…

Will swallows. So many questions, and yet in the end, all Will can ask is, “ _why?_ ”

Hannibal considers him, then sets his pencil aside. He sets it down precisely where it rests, in a positioned groove along the table. Then Hannibal stands. “Why what, Will?”

Will doesn’t stand. “Why him?”

“Dear Will, I’ve already told you—“

“It wasn’t because he knew who you were,” Will cuts in, sharply. He’s been puzzling and driving himself insane  over this for hours, and while Hannibal had been too polite to point it out, Will knows he looks like shit. “Or because he knew who you weren’t, I guess. He was someone who knew you’d assumed the role of someone else… who had no interest in turning you in? That’s practically catnip to you, Hannibal.”

Hannibal ducks his head in acknowledgement, and the smile in his eyes can only be described as _expectant_. “It would seem.”

“And yet you killed him.”

“I did.”

Will shakes his head. “I don’t understand." 

“How disappointing.” Hannibal says, hands clasping casually behind his back. “And facetious. Perhaps it has been a long three years, Will, but I believe you do understand.”

Will’s lips thin. A muscle in his jaw twitches and it takes a concentrated effort to stay sitting still. He doesn’t want to admit that Hannibal is right, but the longer he sits there, the deeper the darkness grips onto him, the more comfortable he gets basking in the familiar atmosphere that only Hannibal has ever been able to provide, Will is almost afraid to admit that he’s beginning to see it. The issue is that he doesn’t want to. He can see the dots so clearly in his mind, can see the way they’re beginning to connect. If he focuses hard enough, he can almost see the scene in his mind.

The metronome swings, but before it’s made a full pass, it stutters to a sudden, grinding halt.

Will doesn’t need it. He already knows the answer.

It takes him three attempts to swallow, and when he does, it’s loud and clicking. Hannibal politely says nothing, but there is expectancy in his eyes. Will feels odd. Heavy but light, solidly grounded but like he’s merely watching this scene unfold. Yet more than anything, in the scope of his mind, he watches the walls of Hannibal’s prison climb down. Equal footing.

“He wasn’t me,” he says, so quietly that he feels certain that Hannibal can’t have heard him.

Given the way Hannibal’s lips spread into a slow, rueful smile, he has.

 “No. He wasn’t.”

Will lifts his eyes and looks up at Hannibal.

Anthony Dimmond looked like him. For all Will knows, they acted the same. He knew about Hannibal and did nothing about it, belying an interest, and Hannibal’s resulting tableau had been so intimate it had bordered on grotesque. Will thinks about it, about the time it must have taken for Hannibal to break bones and fold tissue into once-living origami. He thinks of the rage etched into the scene, the anger almost thrumming from the bent, broken corpse like a metaphorical heartbeat. A broken heart, so succinctly put, and Will has always merely assumed this one of Hannibal’s eccentricities.

As he looks up and sees the brief flicker of something old and dark and guarded ease over Hannibal’s expression, Will goes quiet. He’d not had all the pieces before. Now he’s beginning to realize he never will.

He has this one, though.

~*~

When Will arrives back at his room that night, he feels weak and sluggish. His mind is a whirlwind of everything he can’t stand it being, so he gives in. He drinks. He downs whiskey until he feels pleasantly warm and then lays back on the bed, reaching for the phone on his bedside table, where the screen is blinking to show he’s got missed texts from Molly.

He goes still when he picks up the phone, feeling its weight.

He looks down at his phone and he thinks of Molly, of his dogs, of Walter. He thinks of baseball practice and teaching and fixing motors for the neighbors. He thinks of bringing fish home for dinner, of taking Walter out back to play.

He thinks of Hannibal, of the intent look in his eyes whenever Will used to get close. He thinks of long conversations and acceptance. He thinks of even longer comfortable silences, of barely-there-touches. And as he lays there on the bed, his phone in his hands, his thumb hovering over Molly’s contact, he thinks of Hannibal in his cell. He thinks of the way Hannibal had looked when he’d risen, how his eyes had tracked Will’s every movement, how he’d forgotten himself just enough to take a half-step forward when Will had begun to leave.

_“Why me?”  Will had asked, defeated._

_“Dear Will, It’s always been you.”_

Molly’s contact stares back at him. Slowly Will turns off his phone and sets it aside. He sits up and leans forward, putting his face in his hands. He breathes in deep, listening to the ticking of his watch.

It’s always been him.

Panic curls like smoke around Will’s lungs, making them tight. He thinks of Hannibal watching him from behind the wall of his cell.

Hannibal is trapped there, a butterfly behind glass, so close and yet so far out of reach.

Will breathes. He’s made a mistake.

**Author's Note:**

> [My tumblr](https://reallymisscoffee.tumblr.com/).


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